My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

—200 MY LIFEwith one or other of their four hands, to catch hold ofsomething. I estimated one jump by a long-tailedwhite monkey at thirty feet horizontal, and sixty feetvertical, from a high tree on to a lower one ;he fellthrough, however, so great was his impetus, on to alower branch, and then, without a moment's stop,scampered away from tree to tree, evidently quitepleased with his own pluck. When I startle a band,and one leader takes a leap like this, it is amusing towatch the others—some afraid and hesitating on thebrink till at last they pluck up courage, take a run atit, and often roll over in the air with their desperateefforts. Then there are the long-armed apes, whonever walk or run upon the trees, but travel altogetherby their long arms, swinging themselves from boughto bough in the easiest and most graceful mannerpossible." But I must leave the monkeys and turn to themen, who will interest you more, though there isnothing very remarkable in them. They are Malays,speaking a curious, half-unintelligible Malay dialectMohammedans, but retaining many pagan customsThey are very ignorant, very lazy,and superstitions.and live almost absolutely on rice alone, thrivingupon it, however, just as the Irish do, or did, uponpotatoes. They were a bad lot a few years ago, butthe Dutch have brought them into order by theiradmirable system of supervision and government.By-the-by, I hope you have read Mr. Money's bookon Java. It is well worth while, and you will seethat I had come to the same conclusions as to Dutchcolonial government from what I saw in Menado.Nothing is worse and more absurd than the sneeringprejudiced tone in which almost all English writersspeak of the Dutch government in the East. It